Peer Support: Expectations and Realities

This article describes an evaluation of fourteen peer-support schemes in seven primary schools and seven secondary schools where NSPCC advisers worked closely with the schools. Each school received a questionnaire at the start of their involvement and, after about 12 months, the researcher visited each of the schools to conduct in-depth interviews with the person who had completed the original questionnaire. The evaluation explored why the schools had undertaken this work and what the potential benefits to the schools and the students were. The details of the schemes and the findings specific to primary and secondary sectors are also discussed. In particular, training, unrealistic expectations about behaviour and the uses of staff times are debated. The author concludes that peer-support schemes can be mistakenly seen as a panacea.

Keywords:

• peer support
• peer counselling
• NSPCC
• primary and secondary schools